1.
A story I tell sometimes is that I never heard the word “cunt” until I was in college. My boyfriend had a roommate with a collection of books in the living room - one of them bright blue with an orange flower on the cover. Cunt: A Declaration of Independence — a feminist reclamation of the word. I would pick it up from time to time, but its impact was lost on me because I had never heard the word used as an insult before. I had never heard the word, period. What was there to reclaim?
2.
In the same apartment, I listened to an episode of This American Life about an 8th grader who attempted self-immolation. I listened to countless episodes of This American Life at that time - we had a joke where we would frame stories by saying “Act One … Act Two …” in our best Ira Glass impression. This particular episode completely blew my mind because once again, I encountered something I had never heard of, which is ironic because I had that Stars album on regular rotation at the time. I thought it was pure metaphor. As I listened to the story, I could feel myself moving from one version of myself to another. One who did not know into one who did.
Wow, I relate so specifically to all of this. I too was a latecomer to “cunt”; I listened to so much This American Life in college (were there any other podcasts??); Stars comprised about 20% of my iPod. I think I’ll go listen to them right now.
More of this! xoxo